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Official Washington is fuming over Russia’s expanded military role in helping Syria fight the Islamic State and Al Qaeda (as if the U.S. has been doing such a crack job). Instead, the U.S. should retreat from the unpopular job of global policeman, says ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller.

September 24, 2015
By Graham E. Fuller
Consortiumnews.com

Washington has jealously guarded the role of global policeman for over half a century. But is the game still worth the candle?

World War II left no power standing other than the United States. Washington was in a unique position to lead “the free world” against the Soviet Union in the Cold War. But after the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the U.S. found its true moment in the sun, perceiving its new emergence as the “sole global superpower.”

A U.S. Army soldier provides security at a school in Farah City, Afghanistan, on Aug. 1, 2012. (Photo credit: U.S. Navy Lt. Benjamin Addison)

Prestige, respect, economic and cultural “soft power” had all been originally vital complements to American military superpowermanship. But 9/11 eclipsed all that. In today’s world the U.S. has increasingly diverted its true national and international voice into the field of national security, where military means become the prime instrument of statesmanship and diplomacy. The State Department is now largely overwhelmed by the Pentagon in the formulation of foreign policy.

This militarization of American strategic vision emerges directly from possession of the overwhelmingly largest military machine in the world, supported by over 700 military bases scattered across the globe and the biggest military budget of all other competitors combined.